Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Green Lines and Grey Areas

Shachar May, 22 years old, raised in New Jersey, is a current participant on Tikkun Olam's spring semester coexistence track. Shachar is spending her time on the program volunteering at Gesher Clinic, a psychiatric clinic for asylum seekers and other persons without status in Israel, Porter Center Elderly day center, where she is leading an art class, and Etty Hillelsum Israeli Youth Theater.

“Liminal” is a favorite word of mine. Coming from the Latin “limen,” meaning
“threshold”, the word originated to describe a person’s state while they are in
the midst of a transformative ritual – the in-between state where they are
neither here nor there. These days, it’s an esoteric term used in anthropology
and gender studies to describe people who are “betwixt and between” – people
who have fallen through the cracks of society and are neither insiders nor
outsiders.

As a half-Israeli, half-American, the best word I have for
my identity is “liminal”. Growing up, we visited my mother’s family in Israel
every year. I half understood the language. I was half familiar with the culture.
Coming to Shabbat dinner with my entire extended family feels half like a
tourist visit and half like a homecoming. In the States, I introduced myself
with my last name, “May”, for almost 5 years to avoid having to explain the
pronunciation of my first name. In the social-justice oriented circles I lived
and worked in, pro-Israeli stances were unpopular. I resented the time I had
spent in Jewish day school because I felt that I had only received biased
information. I saw that my upbringing was secluded and lacked diversity.

I often fielded questions about Israeli conflict and culture
from non-Jewish friends, and my answers were always ambivalent. I lived with a
dual identity in a double-reality. I didn’t know how I felt. I felt that being
Israeli was incredibly important to me, but the more I read about the political
realities the less I agreed with my country’s actions.

Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa is a joint project of the Bina Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture, the Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism, and the Union for Reform Judaism. Tikkun Olam is a Masa Israel Journey program.